On my Mac is is beachball… beachball… beachball… reboot… beachball… beachball… beachball.. you’d have thought somebody gets paid to make me watch the beachball for how much it happens. And this is a top of the line M4 mini with maxed out RAM and everything.
I'd say this. I haven't had a Windows desktop computer with serious problems since 2007.
I had a long string of Windows laptops that were basically OK from maybe 2013 to 2023 except for problems with USB that got progressively worse over time (for each machine.) I think some of them were were real hardware problems but I think also the USB 3 spec doesn't guarantee that you can plug in very many devices and have it work, it depends on the PCIe architecture inside the machine. That "ding" sound when a USB device disconnects from windows has traumatized me and I've turned it off anywhere where I can because it is like a gunshot to a Vietnam vet.
I found very little literature about other Windows laptops users facing these problems but endless posts by AppleCare frequent fliers who seem to spend their lives at the Genius Bar and getting their old defective laptops replaced with new defective laptops, I think Windows users just expect it to be all screwed up.
For a long time Windows has struggled with processes that suck down a lot of resources at boot time. At home it is things that do software updates and saturate my 2x20Mbps internet connection. At work it is the backup program that saturates my Ethernet.
Mostly getting stuff done on the Windows machine in the next room or playing music off a different stereo or playing music on cassette tape or minidisc on the same stereo, etc. It's easier to fall back to a world of 20th century electronics where latency is imperceptible than it is to dive into a world of third-party apps that were all designed around somebody's inscrutable KPIs but didn't consider at all my convenience or inconvenience. Probably it is Creative Cloud updating or some software for the mouse or some kind of crap and if I sat in front of the machine for 30 minutes it might settle down but it's rare that I sit in front of it for 30 minutes. It used to be that kind of thing wrecked the Windows experience but over a long period of time Microsoft did a lot of work to balance to load of startup processes and mostly you don't feel it.
My wife browses the web a lot on that Mac, she hasn't complained since I installed Firefox + uBlock Origin but maybe she expects it to be slow.
* My MacMini was constantly beachballing and, unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize that there was a problem with the device.
* I now have a 2023 MBP that screams like a "Formula Un" racing car.
I suspect you have a faulty device.
edit: Just saw that you live far away from an Apple store. I imagine you could mail it in for some type of service, but obviously, that's not optimal if you have no immediate replacement.
I had a Mac Studio that would kernel panic on a semi-weekly basis. Apple Care put me through the reinstall OS / remove all external devices tap-dance for weeks, insisting that hardware was the last thing to suspect - before Apple Silicon, kernel panics were almost always hardware, particularly RAM.
Ultimately I bought another Studio and swapped it in - kernel panics went away. With that evidence, Apple acknowledged the problem and exchanged my Studio for another one from the factory. I returned the swap unit within the 30 day window, so it didn't cost me anything but annoyance.
Needing to shell out... what? 2000 bucks to prove Apple Support they were wrong seems a very, very bad sign for that Support. Even if you got them back.
My 128GB RAM M3 Max had logic board replaced 3x and I am still getting beachball alongside screen falling apart in blocks... There is something wrong with their firmware, especially when you are switching between multiple users often.
one other thing to check is if you installed any kernel extensions...inside Apple engineering, folks with kernel extensions could get bizarre errors since the quality of them could screw up stability with all sorts of symptoms.
kextstat | grep -v com.apple
would show anything _maybe_ troublesome, but not guaranteed related.
In my case no kernel extensions. Every few days the computer freezes with a beachball and/or screen starts falling apart in large blocks randomly shuffling around the screen and I need to power it off. The first logicboard also added a bunch of pink noise in a few clusters all over the screen. Whenever I got close to freeze my power charging beeps were getting more and more frequent up to around 1 beep per 3 seconds with USB charger in (the beep when you insert power adapter into USB port).
Try to browse the web. Try to listen to music with Plexamp. Ordinary boring stuff but I think it is looking all over Slovakia for my AirPods or something so it can take them away from whatever machine I really want to use them on.
The feeling is exactly like the way it was with Windows circa 2005 when you expected your machine to go bad like cheese in a few months.
I’ll add that MacOS is crammed with spammy ads for Apple Music and other services I don’t want. To be fair somebody wants Apple Music whereas the Microsoft versions of those things are completely unwanted.
Ads and nags in the Windows World are drawn using the same HTML-based technology that has replaced Windows native apps since Windows 8, the ads and nags in MacOS are the 2025 anti-antialiased retreads of the 1999 MacOS X imitations of the modal dialogs from 1984 MacOS classic. It’s sad. When I set up a new Mac for my wife she was furious at how ad infested it was, especially to browse the web with Safari and if you want to add an ad blocked you need an Apple Account which is something she’s done without using macs for 20+ years.
Eventually Asahi will catch up... if Apple doesn't turn around and purposely make it harder, hopefully we didn't just get lucky they were feeling "benevolent" with earlier M-series.
I believe they'll make it easier, actually. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight.
Yeah, I am not a huge fan either. I would much prefer Linux or a very customized Windows.
For instance, the inability to write to NTFS filesystems without addons is annoying.
But I believe that for most users, the default MacOS experience is now much better than what Windows is with default settings.
On my Mac is is beachball… beachball… beachball… reboot… beachball… beachball… beachball.. you’d have thought somebody gets paid to make me watch the beachball for how much it happens. And this is a top of the line M4 mini with maxed out RAM and everything.
I had forgotten that mac has a beachball cursor. Something’s wrong on your macbook. (M4 max here)
What am I supposed to do, drive 300 miles to the nearest Genius Bar?
What would you do if your non-Apple computer was having performance issues?
I'd say this. I haven't had a Windows desktop computer with serious problems since 2007.
I had a long string of Windows laptops that were basically OK from maybe 2013 to 2023 except for problems with USB that got progressively worse over time (for each machine.) I think some of them were were real hardware problems but I think also the USB 3 spec doesn't guarantee that you can plug in very many devices and have it work, it depends on the PCIe architecture inside the machine. That "ding" sound when a USB device disconnects from windows has traumatized me and I've turned it off anywhere where I can because it is like a gunshot to a Vietnam vet.
I found very little literature about other Windows laptops users facing these problems but endless posts by AppleCare frequent fliers who seem to spend their lives at the Genius Bar and getting their old defective laptops replaced with new defective laptops, I think Windows users just expect it to be all screwed up.
For a long time Windows has struggled with processes that suck down a lot of resources at boot time. At home it is things that do software updates and saturate my 2x20Mbps internet connection. At work it is the backup program that saturates my Ethernet.
Debug it? Swap some components? Good luck with that on that shiny closed box.
What have you tried?
Mostly getting stuff done on the Windows machine in the next room or playing music off a different stereo or playing music on cassette tape or minidisc on the same stereo, etc. It's easier to fall back to a world of 20th century electronics where latency is imperceptible than it is to dive into a world of third-party apps that were all designed around somebody's inscrutable KPIs but didn't consider at all my convenience or inconvenience. Probably it is Creative Cloud updating or some software for the mouse or some kind of crap and if I sat in front of the machine for 30 minutes it might settle down but it's rare that I sit in front of it for 30 minutes. It used to be that kind of thing wrecked the Windows experience but over a long period of time Microsoft did a lot of work to balance to load of startup processes and mostly you don't feel it.
My wife browses the web a lot on that Mac, she hasn't complained since I installed Firefox + uBlock Origin but maybe she expects it to be slow.
I've had 2 macs over the past ~10 years.
* My MacMini was constantly beachballing and, unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize that there was a problem with the device.
* I now have a 2023 MBP that screams like a "Formula Un" racing car.
I suspect you have a faulty device.
edit: Just saw that you live far away from an Apple store. I imagine you could mail it in for some type of service, but obviously, that's not optimal if you have no immediate replacement.
Base m4 Mac mini. Only beach balling is when I saturate 16GB with compiles and builds. That thing of yours is a lemon.
Lemons do happen with Apple Silicon.
I had a Mac Studio that would kernel panic on a semi-weekly basis. Apple Care put me through the reinstall OS / remove all external devices tap-dance for weeks, insisting that hardware was the last thing to suspect - before Apple Silicon, kernel panics were almost always hardware, particularly RAM.
Ultimately I bought another Studio and swapped it in - kernel panics went away. With that evidence, Apple acknowledged the problem and exchanged my Studio for another one from the factory. I returned the swap unit within the 30 day window, so it didn't cost me anything but annoyance.
Needing to shell out... what? 2000 bucks to prove Apple Support they were wrong seems a very, very bad sign for that Support. Even if you got them back.
My 128GB RAM M3 Max had logic board replaced 3x and I am still getting beachball alongside screen falling apart in blocks... There is something wrong with their firmware, especially when you are switching between multiple users often.
I think user switching is part of the problem in my case.
one other thing to check is if you installed any kernel extensions...inside Apple engineering, folks with kernel extensions could get bizarre errors since the quality of them could screw up stability with all sorts of symptoms.
kextstat | grep -v com.apple
would show anything _maybe_ troublesome, but not guaranteed related.
In my case no kernel extensions. Every few days the computer freezes with a beachball and/or screen starts falling apart in large blocks randomly shuffling around the screen and I need to power it off. The first logicboard also added a bunch of pink noise in a few clusters all over the screen. Whenever I got close to freeze my power charging beeps were getting more and more frequent up to around 1 beep per 3 seconds with USB charger in (the beep when you insert power adapter into USB port).
definitely unusual, sounds like hardware issue (as someone else mentioned)
WTF are you doing with it? Mine doesn't do that (M4 Pro MBP / 24Gb)
Try to browse the web. Try to listen to music with Plexamp. Ordinary boring stuff but I think it is looking all over Slovakia for my AirPods or something so it can take them away from whatever machine I really want to use them on.
The feeling is exactly like the way it was with Windows circa 2005 when you expected your machine to go bad like cheese in a few months.
Are you sure yours isn't broken? My daughter has an M4 and she does hefty biochem stuff on it. No beachballing or anything. Same with my M4 Pro.
Also airpods move instantly here. No issues.
Something is seriously wrong with your machine or one of the persistent apps you are running.
Backup, reset to factory. Try using it, if it’s fixed, try restoring. If it’s not fixed it’s defective in some way.
If it’s broken only after you restore, manually import your data and install apps one at a time making sure nothing breaks before installing the next.
My problem was simply chrome so I switched to brave.
How many Electron apps are you running?
I’ll add that MacOS is crammed with spammy ads for Apple Music and other services I don’t want. To be fair somebody wants Apple Music whereas the Microsoft versions of those things are completely unwanted.
Ads and nags in the Windows World are drawn using the same HTML-based technology that has replaced Windows native apps since Windows 8, the ads and nags in MacOS are the 2025 anti-antialiased retreads of the 1999 MacOS X imitations of the modal dialogs from 1984 MacOS classic. It’s sad. When I set up a new Mac for my wife she was furious at how ad infested it was, especially to browse the web with Safari and if you want to add an ad blocked you need an Apple Account which is something she’s done without using macs for 20+ years.
Just wait til she jumps on a windows 11 device!
But I do agree with you. Thankfully it is minimal relative to windows.
First thing I do with a Win 11 install is ask Copilot how to turn all the crap off. ;-)
Eventually Asahi will catch up... if Apple doesn't turn around and purposely make it harder, hopefully we didn't just get lucky they were feeling "benevolent" with earlier M-series.
I believe they'll make it easier, actually. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight.